


Birds of a feather, science together

by daroos



Series: Fellows, Jolly Good [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Comedy, Gen, POV Outsider, SCIENCE!, Support Staff, Washingon DC, skience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daroos/pseuds/daroos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the fall of SHIELD proper, recruiting methods have had to become more creative.  Job interviews have always sucked, and finding the right position fresh out of a doctorate can be hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds of a feather, science together

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) policy postdoctoral fellowship. By brought to you I mean ‘is the spiritual child of’ not ‘has contributed any financial aid towards’. Though there are many career paths open to scientists, this particular route recruits doctorates in service of the government -- sometimes, the shadier side of the government.
> 
> Special thanks to Frea for shaking down my English, and beta'ing this whole thing.
> 
> Set mid-season 2-ish of MAoS.

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1242 4.12.15  
_Do you think I should bring any slides?_

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1251 4.12.15  
_WTF no these things r like 1/2hr u wil lhardly have time 2 say ur name_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1252 4.12.15  
_Okay_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1252 4.12.15  
_Do you think they’ll want to know about why I’m not working in my thesis lab anymore?_

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1310 4.12.15  
_Calm ur tits. I bet they dont GAF_

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1317 4.12.15  
_Did u remmbr socks?_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1318 4.12.15  
_Yes. Do you think I need more?_

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1329 4.12.15  
_i m omw just be ready for airport in 20_

**\--**

“Miriam Wen, pleasure to meet you. _Doctor_ Miriam Wen. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.” Miriam coughed to clear her throat. Her scalp ached (just a bit) in a familiar way, from the product and effort involved in scraping her hair into a ponytail. Some mixed race girls got off easy with ‘good’ hair, but African American and Chinese had not worked out well for her on that front. She puffed out her cheeks in frustration at her reflection in the mirror, and refocused. “It’s lovely to — nobody in diplomacy says ‘lovely’. Hi, Miriam Wen, it’s nice to—”

Her phone buzzed so loud and so hard that it almost rumbled off of the entryway table. She glanced one last time in the mirror to check her lipstick. The Supershuttle parked in her drive gave an impatient beep, and she shoved her boots on, grabbed her bags, and was out the door.

**\--**

Reis checked his attaché, patted down his pockets to check that he remembered his phone and wallet, and got halfway to running his fingers through his hair before he stopped himself. His dress shoes pinched, just the wrong side of familiar, and his suit jacket felt a little too tight, and if he had a panic attack before he even got on the _subway_ he was going to die of embarrassment. He had survived the Battle of New York, and a thesis defense which had been — to put it mildly — intense, and so what if what amounted to an entire _branch_ of global security and the American Government had been downed by oldschool Indiana Jones Style Nazis? He was a fucking PhD and a born and bred New Yorker; he would make it through this shit.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, and scooted out the door to catch the bus, luggage and attaché and computer bag almost immediately falling into a disarrayed straightjacket of straps and handles.

\--

“And what’s the name the reservation is under?”

“Benjamine Kahler,” Bennie said. She stared the front desk guy down, daring him to comment.

He was well trained or not paying attention. “Miss Kahler. We have you down for five nights — is that correct?”

She nodded tersely. She was fucking starving. Like, ready to fall over and maybe try to eat the carpet starving. She was that kind of starving where it’d circled around back to being nauseous, and she had a headache, and just... ugh. “I just checked, and housekeeping isn’t quite done with your room yet. We can give you a call when everything is prepared, if you’d like,” the front desk guy offered. It wasn’t his fault, but she narrowed her eyes at him, regardless.

“Yeah. That’s fine. I need to leave some luggage with you, also.”

“Not a problem. Let me get you a check slip.”

\--

Miriam sat in the lobby of the (very nice) hotel they were put up in for interviews, having a quiet moment of panic during the (very public) hotel sponsored happy hour. Wine didn’t particularly agree with her, but it kept her hands busy while she tried not to worry about the fact that she had a total of one interview scheduled in the entirety of what should be a very full upcoming week.

Older couples sat with their free glasses of wine and sucked the meat from olive pits and generally looked upscale. There was another woman Miriam suspected was an interviewing fellow as well, and a man in a polo shirt with the whiff of an ivy league about him, but she made no move to introduce herself to either one. She was already exhausted and the first day hadn’t even begun. Her flight had been delayed four hours due to first tornados and second mechanical issues. Someone had tried to flush a diaper down the plane’s toilet (apparently) resulting in her arriving in just as happy hour had begun, instead of mid-morning.

She watched quietly as another three people checked into their hotel rooms, picked up and dropped off luggage, talked with the concierge. There was a quiet place, in amongst the bustle, that existed in places built for transitory existence. Miriam crossed her ankles, rested her head against the wall, and let the noise wash through her.

\--

The first thing Reis did, upon entering his hotel room, was go to the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the street below. The second thing he did was open the closet doors, the minibar, and the drawer beneath the TV to see what treasures lay within the furniture. He then face-planted in the king-sized bed’s faux-fur blanket and rolled around on it. He allowed himself ten minutes to revel in the feeling of not having to think, or plan, or worry, or move, before he sat up and pulled out his laptop.

Things at work had been busy verging on hectic for the last several weeks as budgets came in following the new year and hiring became a distinct possibility instead of the pipe dream it had been for the previous twenty months. He had a project due on the first day of fellowship interviews, and though his current bosses were very supportive of the idea of him doing what he was doing — going off to work for the government as a do-gooder for a year or two writing policy and hobbing nobs with Washington bigwigs — his bosses did not seem to realize the time investment the interviewing process would require. There was a project update in his work email, an email from his mother in his personal email, three emails from the fellowship proceedings in his professional-but-not-work email, and he just wanted this week to be over already, and it wasn’t even Monday.

\--

“Hey, not to be weird or anything, but are you going to fellowship orientation?”

Miriam twitched, but didn’t startle. The woman addressing her was mid-thirties, caucasian, and looked pregnant enough to give birth at any moment. “Yeah,” Miriam admitted before her brain could catch up.

“Oh, good. I was like, eighty percent sure I was on the right side of the platform but it’s nice to have some reassurance, you know?” The pregnant woman shifted her laptop bag to her other shoulder and held out her right hand to shake. “Ana Heukeroth.”

“Miriam Wen,” Miriam offered with her handshake. By the time they got on the Metro, they’d picked up two more fellowship interviewees into their group, and Miriam had learned more than she cared to know about FAA regulations regarding pregnant women and flight.

They traveled through Washington streets, quiet in the early morning, like a pack of minnows in a confusion of nobody quite knowing where they were going. Their twisted path was resolved when they caught the stream of other fellows traveling to orientation in a thickening river of humanity.

Ana grinned at Miriam. “Aren’t you excited?”

Miriam smiled weakly. “I’m something.”

\--

“Should these say ‘doctor’ on them?” Reis asked. He waved the name tag which read “Reis Amjad” and on a second line, “HEHS,” identifying his program affiliation.

“We’re all doctors here,” a woman in a brightly colored headscarf said, the eyeroll clear in her voice.

“Oh, right.” He clipped the name tag on the lapel of his new suit jacket.

“You’re HEHS?” she asked and didn’t wait for an answer. “Me too. Let’s compare interview schedules.”

\--

Bennie sat in a lecture hall, the morning light cascading through a bank of windows which stretched across the eastern wall of the room. Ranks of strangers in business suits and sensible shoes and less-sensible shoes sat on point, focused on the speaker.

“—every one of you has been deemed qualified. Your job now is to find an agency and project where mutual interest—”

She rubbed her eye and halfway through the gesture realized she was smudging her eyeliner. She flipped through the packet of flyers and schedules they’d been given along with color-coded nametags upon entry. There was a list of networking lunches and happy hours and informational sessions, brightly colored advertisements for the Department of Defense lunch, and her schedule.

“Some of you might have twenty interviews. Some of you might only have a few scheduled right now, but remember, you only have to find _one right place_. If you feel like your schedule is a little light, you can always—”

Bennie stared at her schedule, feeling panic rising in her. She’d been too busy getting her projects to a holding pattern so that she could be gone for a full week, to give it much thought. She had one appointment on Thursday. That was it. It didn’t even have a proper point of contact — just a phone number and an address. She would need to get on scheduling more interviews, stat. She thumbed her phone screen and considered just stepping out of the orientation to start making calls, but there were three people on either side of her in the rows of chairs, and she had the feeling she wouldn’t survive the embarrassment of trying to exit quietly. She’d just have to settle in.

\--

Miriam listed in her chair feeling as though she wanted to throw up, but that vomiting might result in her entire esophagus being eaten through by whatever liquid her stomach had put together to make her feel like this. It was the early hour, the time difference from California to DC, the coffee, and the orange juice: she hadn’t actually eaten a battery acid flavored danish. It was also the fact that she was apparently the least desirable fellow on the surface of the earth. She felt like the cupcake that had fallen off the table and lost half of its frosting in the grass, only to be placed back on the buffet and studiously ignored until it was time to toss everything out.

She had expected at least to get an interview with the State Department. Or one of the crackpot Republican ‘we can free-market-economy Africa out of poverty’ think tanks. Or the DoD. God, the DoD didn’t even want her. _Homeland Security_ didn’t even want her, and they funded bomb-detecting seals. She was less marketable than untrained marine life. Ana nudged Miriam with her knee. Ana’s pregnant belly precluded her having a lap, and she had given up on trying to sort through the papers and flyers during the orientation.

“You okay?” the Ana mouthed.

Miriam swallowed, winced, and nodded.

Ana pulled a baggie out of somewhere and offered her a saltine, which Miriam took gratefully and sucked on.

\--

“—and lastly, I want to remind you all to go out and enjoy the city in your free time. The cherry blossoms are out this week, and—”

“When does she think we’re gonna have time for that?” the man next to Reis asked, elbowing him conspiratorially.

Reis shrugged. “I should have time,” he replied in an undertone. One meeting on Thursday. They must really want him, or something, for them to be his only scheduled interview thus far. It was a long one, too — nearly two and a half hours blocked out from his arrival to departure time.

“Huh,” the guy next to him huffed. “You worried?”

Reis hadn’t been, up until the moment the other man asked. Shit. “It only takes one, right?” Reis deflected. The guy next to him shrugged and went quiet again in order to focus on a the final summary slide which outlined the difference between being a temporary government worker and a temporary contractor.

\--

“Soo,” one of the other applicants drawled, when she was called on, “looking at my calendar, there is the distinct possibility that my schedule this week will result in my death.” Bennie saw that her nametag read ‘Sara’. Sara paused for a wash of anxious laughter from the rest of the fellows, similarly overloaded. “My question for the panel is this: at some point does it get better?”

After the initial orientation talk, they’d been split into their groups for further, smaller, more specific orientation talks. Bennie’s background in informatics put her in the data and analytics group, and it was evident that their speciality was in high demand. Just from quick glances to her left and right, she saw full interview schedules. Like, ridiculously full. Like, where were people even going to have time to pee, full. She saw meetings with an alphabet soup of government agencies she could readily identify (DOD, NSF, EPA) and a few she couldn’t identify, but which she suspected were government-contracted think tanks.

Hers didn’t even have an acronym to look up. It didn’t even have a name of a person she could try to find on linkedin. She’d already tried a number lookup on the phone number supplied, but it led nowhere that was publicly available. The address was for a business park between the Pentagon and the edge of the surprise construction site that Theodore Roosevelt Island had become after the... could it be called a collapse? Attack? Accident? of the previous year. Maybe she’d get to be close to some kind of action, at least.

The panel was a mix of current fellows department spokespeople shilling for their departments. It was all a lot of shilling for her taste, but that was the market. Some of the people simply put a bad taste in her mouth. Some of them seemed to genuinely love what they were doing, and that at least gave her some hope.

Somehow, Bennie had always thought that defending a doctoral thesis in front of her advisor, committee, friends, and family, would be the hardest thing she would ever have to do. She was unprepared for the unrelenting grind of applications, interviews, and travel that all seemed to be funneling into a black hole of pointless exhaustion. The fellowship had come to her like a life ring in rough seas. As ‘no’s came back from each of her interviews and she rolled the fellowship description around on her tongue like scotch, she found she liked the taste of it more and more. And here she was, already a failure-in-training in her last hope.

National science funding had been slashed, first by a science-averse presidency, then by sequestration, then by... well, the fight for funding felt more like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome than the collegiate tournament it had seemed like when Bennie had started her undergraduate degree. Though the science of information sounded sexy in a recursive sort of way, most informatics and data science programs were in hiring freezes that had been in place since the sequestration in ’13, and the possibility of breaking through _that_ in addition to the glass ceiling was... daunting.

So she sat and chewed the inside of her lip and tried to remember she was equally as badass as any of the others sitting at the table with her, schedules be damned.

\--

Managing a laptop case, a folio of papers, a plate of sandwiches, and a drink all while trying to keep his tie out of anything that could stain was not something Reis felt experienced enough to do. The issue was compounded by the fact that there was absolutely nowhere to sit. There was not even any convenient place to stand and eat. The thought that this might be a test flashed through his mind before he shook his head.

He decided to join the people who had already given up on decorum: he leaned against and slid down a wall. Reis flipped his tie over his shoulder and set his plate between his spread knees, atop his laptop. One bite of his sandwich told him it wasn’t what he wanted, and indeed, that food was not what he wanted, but he continued doggedly through the entire thing.

“Hey!” Balia, the woman in the headscarf who had bonded with him over their Syrian mothers during the large orientation sat down next to him. “This is Andrew. He’s one of us too.” Balia waved to a tall, dirty blond man who looked like he was a very freshly minted PhD. One of the requirements to become a fellow was a doctorate, and the pool of participants seemed to fall into a bimodal distribution: those who had just barely made it out of their doctorate in time to apply, and those who had been working for around eight years and were damned fed up with their jobs, looking for something new. Reis fell on the spectrum more towards the latter. It wasn’t so much that he was sick of his job, but that he wanted something a bit more... exciting.

Andrew nodded jerkily and tried, unsuccessfully, not to loom. “Do you have any interviews today?” Andrew asked, obviously trying to be polite.

“Uh...” Reis hedged.

\--

Waking up Tuesday felt, if possible, worse than waking up Monday. Miriam moaned unhappily.

 _I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me_ the ipod dock/alarm clock sang.

She threw her pillow across the room and rolled out of bed. Fuck yes she was going to make it through this. She had managed to schedule an interview for Tuesday afternoon, and three more for Wednesday. She was going to do this, even if it resulted in her untimely death.

\--

A greying man wearing shiny dress shoes and a tailored suit stepped into the waiting room, looked around, and glanced at the secretary. “I’m waiting for a Ben Kahler: let me know when he arrives.”

Bennie stood up. “That’s me.”

The man startled back in surprise that was not even thinly veiled. “I’m sorry, we must have the—”

“Call me Bennie,” she offered, along with her hand.

\--

 _I am going to fall asleep_ Miriam thought clearly to herself. It was early-afternoon, the sun through the window was soporific, and she was fucking jetlagged. Sleepiness buzzed under her skin like fire, and her blinks lengthened as an EPA project manager continued talking about water quality.

\--

“You’re looking for _who_?” the security guard asked.

“Dr. Majumdar?” Bennie replied. The security guard exchanged a look with his counterpart in a booth across the hall. “With the DHS?”

“What? We’re not the DHS. We’re the department of the interior. They told you to come here?”

“I think?”

\--

Reis had found a halal food truck along the path he’d wandered to see the cherry blossoms, and he sat in the shade to eat his late lunch. The air was thick in spite of the fact that it was barely spring, and tourists and locals alike swarmed down the paths, expensive photography equipment and children in tow.

He’d started early in the morning by taking the Metro to Arlington and walked some of the cemetery. Partially it was the whole honoring heroes thing, and no lie, he’d gone to the Howling Commandos’ memorial, but a bigger part of it was to get a look at the mess that was the Potomac and Roosevelt Island. Almost a year later and cranes were still set up to dredge the river. Watching the slow sway of construction equipment, the noise of which only came at intervals with the breeze, put him into a meditative mindset. If this mystery group wanted to hire him on as a fellow, and he liked them enough, that would be great. If he got there and it was sketchy, well, he had never agreed to anything. Not anything firm at least.

\--

 _I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me_ Miriam’s ipod dock/alarm clock sang. She reached out for a pillow, covered her face, and screamed.

\--

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1041 4.14.15  
_I’m familiar with security but this redic_

Bennie’s message was accompanied by a picture of the State department security desk. At least twenty people stood in front of her in two unmoving lines while security agents with shirts covered in what could only be described as _diplomacy flare_ went through exhaustive screens of each individual before issuing a temporary badge

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1055 4.14.15  
_get me some spy secrets. :D did you bring your gun?_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1056 4.14.15  
_STFU they are probably wiretapping this. I think I just saw the top brass of the Guatemalan army or some shit._

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1101 4.14.15  
_I xpect some House Of Cards shit gimmie the dirt_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 1102 4.14.15  
_Fuck you. You are going to get me arrested._

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 1104 4.14.15  
_r u stil in line? that is bullshit_

“Are any of you Ben Kahler?” Bennie was distracted from her text conversation -- and her interminable trip through security -- by a weedy man’s voice. He was looking intently through the men in line.

“That’s me,” she said, and raised her hand, immediately regretting the action. It made her feel like such a schoolchild.

“I beg your pardon,” the man said. He had a trace of a spanish accent, and aggressively square glasses. “I must have—”

“Call me Bennie.” She stuck out her hand, and he shook.

\--

 _They do not even know how much they need someone like me,_ Miriam thought. Staring down the maw of this department’s data issues was like staring into the mouth of a cyclone that was also a dragon. The fact that they thought that a single person could manage their problems was indicative of how serious those problems were.

Miriam did some rough figuring as the pair of program managers continued to tell her about their project goals. If she was going to tackle this, she would want at least a team of three working under her, or better yet, someone with about a decade’s more experience in charge, with her and another person working on the ground-level infrastructure. These researchers were heading towards disaster with the blithe unconcern of cheerful lemmings.

“—which is where you come in.”

Oh god, they were looking at her. Miriam fixed a pleasant smile on her face. “That sounds... like a lot of much-needed work,” she finished, well aware her lack of enthusiasm bordering on distaste was more evident than it should be in polite company. “Yeah, I can definitely see some challenges that I’d be well placed to address with everything you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you have some questions,” project manager A replied after an uncomfortable, quiet moment.

She was scheduled to be here for another half an hour. How in the hell was she going to manage that without running out the door? “Yes, I do.” She flipped through her mental rolodex of go-to questions. “So you outlined the project for this coming year — what do you see further down the pipe?” Further down their pipe was the last place she wanted to see, but the question did a good enough job of getting them to fill the silence.

\--

The moment the elevator door was closed, Bennie dug her flip-flops out of her computer bag, dropped them to the floor, and performed a quick change out of her heels. She smirked at the security guard as she shwuf-thwap’ed with each step out of the building.

\--

_Due to an incident at Columbia Heights station, the Red Line is experience unscheduled delays._

Miriam pulled up the Ooper app on her phone and put in a ride request.

\--

Reis didn’t even try to pretend he was at the ‘networking lunch’ for anything but the ‘lunch’ part. Italian was notoriously tricky to do even an approximation of halal, but there were enough vegetarian options that he felt pretty good about life.

“What are you looking for in a fellowship opportunity?” a stranger asked Reis, and he had a mouth full of vegetable lasagne, and he realized he had made a mistake.

\--

Bennie leaned back as far as she could in her chair, but it seemed as though miles wouldn’t be enough to get her clear of the frenetic blast zone of her interviewer’s energy. She tried to nod along, but mostly she tried to avoid the periodic explosion of his limbs.

A constant repeat of _I don’t want to work here I don’t want to work here_ ran through her mind as she tried to not to let the thought show on her face.

\--

“And the bureaucracy is just terrible,” Miriam’s interviewer continued in a depressed monotone. “When I started here...” He had to think for a minute. “Twenty years ago, maybe, we could get things done, but now... Nothing happens quick and most of the time just nothing happens.”

“Well, I guess that’s the government,” Miriam supplied into the bleak, empty silence her interviewer let stretch between them.

\--

“Maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this.” Bennie was adult enough to admit she should not have had shot two glasses of wine on an empty stomach after a day spent wrestling with interviews across the length and breadth of metro DC. Her third glass was going down entirely too easily, and who the _fuck_ thought they should give recently-graduate-students access to an open bar? The social mixer put on by the fellowship was going to be a sloppy mess.

“Okay,” the guy she was talking to replied with a shrug.

“ _Okay_? No, you are supposed to tell me that of course I’ll find a placement I’ll love.”

“Oh. Sorry. Yeah. Have you tried USAID? I really liked them a lot when I—”

Bennie was distracted from whatever whatshisname said by a passing plate of canapes. Fuck this interviewing bull. She was going to find some rich guy to marry and become a professional cocktail hour attendee. A thought occurred to her.

“Did you have any interviews that didn’t put down their department?” she asked, interrupting guy’s monologue on global poverty.

“Huh?”

“Like, an interview that just has a time and place?” She finished off her third glass of wine and dropped it on a table.

“No. That sounds weird. Are you sure there isn’t an error?”

“I checked and the coordinator said a few get through like that and not to worry.” Not that she was taking that advice — if worrying was a skill you could reference in a CV, Bennie would have it top of the list. She was more than half-way through interview week, and her weirdly secretive interview was tomorrow bright and early in _Virginia_. Ugh.

“That sounds super weird.”

\--

“Wen! We’re going down the street and you should come with us.”

“Tacos,” another fellow added and looped her hand through Miriam’s elbow.

“I have my thing tomorrow,” Miriam said in an attempt to back out.

“Yeah, just like everyone else,” her elbow buddie said. “Come on: diplomacy and national defense fellows unite in Mexican food.”

\--

It wasn’t that the area around the Pentagon was terrible, it was just that, Bennie suspected, anywhere she found herself at this time, after last night, would be terrible. And it was just a bit terrible. She hadn’t even gone out after the mixer, and she still felt cotton-mouthed and gritty.

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB1236  
Time: 0912 4.16.15  
_Virginia is terrible wtf fml_

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 0914 4.16.15  
_dafuq u doin up_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 0915 4.16.15  
_Interview at 930. Looking for coffee but no fucking coffee to be found._

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 0916 4.16.15  
_take hostages n start killin until they get u java_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 0916 4.16.15  
_WTF that’s terrible no. Also Pentagon security would special forces my ass before I got too far._

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 0917 4.16.15  
_probs. ur weak w/o coffee._

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 0919 4.19.15  
_Fuck you. Found a Dunkin Donuts. Cruller, biznitch._

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 0920 4.16.15  
_*grabbyhands*_

From: B.Kahler  
To: BBB123  
Time: 0925 4.19.15  
_[slightly blurry photo of a cruller and a half-empty Dunkin Donuts large coffee, with the photographer’s middle finger to one side]_

Bennie managed to guzzle her remaining coffee and shove the cruller in her mouth while hoofing it to the address listed on her smartphone. It was one of those three-story built-in-the-50’s concrete slab monstrosities with a lobby that aimed for Art Deco and merely reached shabby and rundown. The seal that indicated which organization occupied the building had fallen off, or been ripped from the wall if the concrete dust below the scar was any indication. The security desk was empty of both security guards and the usual clutter of paperwork and snack foods she had come to associate with those stations. She threw her coffee cup and napkin into the trash can by the door and shifted on her heels.

The air in the building felt cool and dry, and in spite of the complete solitude, it had the feeling of a sleeping beast rather than a dead animal. The elevator whirred and dinged.

A woman walked out of the elevator -- slim, asian, middle-aged, and equal parts beautiful and distant. “Dr. Kahler?” the woman asked. Bennie nodded. “Melinda May. Come with me, please.” May turned and didn’t wait for the other woman to follow. At the elevator she pressed the faux-marble facade and a hidden door swung open. She pulled a safety deposit style box from the cupboard and held it open for Bennie. “Cell phone, bluetooth headsets, iPod, Fitbit, tablet, laptop.”

“Um...” Bennie hedged. Her cell was gripped tight in her hand, and buzzed with a text message.

From: BBB123  
To: B.Kahler  
Time: 0933 4.19.15  
_kick em dead with skienze_

“Just for the interview. You’ll get everything back when you leave.”

“Okay, just—”

May was abruptly a lot closer than she had been, and Bennie could see just the littlest bit beneath her seamless exterior. “This is just for our security. You have nothing to worry about, I promise you.”

Something about how May said ‘I promise you’ held weight beyond the words of a stranger should.

\--

Reis dropped his cell, his Kindle, and his laptop into the box May held open. Her grip didn’t change in the slightest with the added weight. She closed the lid, turned a small key, and held it out for him. “Thanks.”

The elevator was still open, as though it was waiting for them: May entered and Reis followed. The elevator did not travel up.

\--

Miriam side-eyed May but didn’t say anything as they went down what felt like three or four floors. When the elevator doors opened, the air that greeted them was damp and smelled like reservoir, or other standing water. Miriam couldn’t help wrinkling her nose at the scent of pond weed.

“Sorry about the smell. The fall of the Triskelion’s helicarriers damaged the foundation. The sump pumps keep it dry enough, but it’s hard to keep the damp at bay. This way.”

May led them down a hall and into a small interview room that looked fresh out of Law and Order. “You need a coffee or anything?” May asked.

\--

“No I just finished one actually. Any more and I might vibrate right out of here.”

“Fair enough. Hang tight and the Director will be in in a few.”

Bennie leaned her computer bag against a wall and sat in the chair across from the door. She widened her eyes as much as she could and rolled out her neck. The caffeine and sugar were hitting her bloodstream and she did feel like she might just vibrate out of there a la The Flash. She clenched and relaxed all of the muscles in her arms and legs in an effort to expiate the jitters.

She peered closely at the mirror, put her finger to it, and got as close to the surface as she could without mashing her nose against anything.

“It is a one-way mirror, but there’s nobody back there,” a man, presumably the Director, said. Bennie jumped. He flipped the lights off with a control just on the other side of the door, and sure enough she could see into a little observation room which was empty. “Phil Coulson. Thank you for taking the time to come talk with us.” The Director was caucasian, middling height and age, solidly built, with thinning hair and a pleasant voice. He wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and no tie. He held out his hand to shake, and Bennie found herself wanting to trust — wanting to like — this man.

\--

“Miriam Wen,” Miriam introduced herself.

Coulson nodded. “Let’s have a seat and talk about why you’re here.”

“That would be good. We could start with what department this even is?” she suggested.

“I skimmed through some of your dissertation,” Coulson said as a seeming non-sequitur.

“My dissertation is under embargo until 2017,” Miriam countered.

Coulson shrugged. “Your aim focusing on platform integration for predictive threat assessment was... prescient. Especially for someone lacking access to the WSC research briefs.”

“Is that what this is? World Security Council?” That would explain why the department name hadn’t been listed, as hiring into a multinational consortium like the WSC would be... tricky.

Coulson’s smile was a bit pained, and he ducked his eyes in a way that clearly said ‘no’. “Have you heard of SHIELD?”

“The HYDRA front running half the government and planning to kill us all in our beds?” Miriam asked, any hint of tact gone with the flash of surprise ‘SHIELD’ elicited in her.

“The organization founded to protect the American public, and the world, from extraordinary threats,” Coulson countered. “The organization that always believed that by recruiting exceptional individuals—”

“–you would have the opportunity to be subverted by Nazis out of history books?” Miriam interrupted. “Is that what this is? SHIELD Central? The heart and soul of domestic terrorism?”

\--

“Look, I already get people thinking I’m part of Al Qaeda enough: I don’t need to actually join a secret underground terrorist cell.” Reis held up his hands. “And no offense, but I hope you all go die in a fire.”

Coulson looked kind of like he was trying not to laugh, or shout, or something similarly explosive. “Dr. Amjad, we’re the good guys. HYDRA is a cancer — one that nearly killed each and every person in this building. It’s one that I’m aware is, at best, in remission. To undermine emerging threats, we need to be smart — smarter than we have ever been before. We lack the numbers and the strength to move like we once did: we need to use leverage, and intelligence, and we need to get it right the first time.”

\--

Bennie stared at the Director with evident suspicion when he finished his little “HYDRA is a cancer” speech. “Okay, I’m going to admit this: I was eyeballs deep in preparation for my thesis defense when all this stuff went down, so I may be a bit confused, but... SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Not as it did, that’s true.”

“But it does still exist?” Bennie asked.

The Director spread his hands out and leaned backwards just enough to be clear he was indicating the basement operation.

“Okay, so just so I’m clear—”

\--

“—you want to hire me for a _federally funded government fellowship_ to work for a _defunct_ ultra-top-secret spy organization that _rather spectacularly_ imploded no more than eight months ago?”

Coulson nodded, then shrugged. “Technically you’d be paid out of a DHS kitty, but yes.”

“Would I be a spy?” Miriam asked, and tried not to sound too enthusiastic about that prospect.

“You’d be more Q or M than 007. We need someone who can sit in on DoD briefings, NSA, DHS, State department — the alphabet soup of security — and synthesize their projects into an understanding of their upcoming programmatic thrusts.”

\--

“We need someone who can coordinate with outside organizations to manage our global surveillance of biological threats.”

\--

“We need someone to take point on our analytics development. We have access to substantial computing resources, but as of now they are not being utilized to their full potential. We’re interested in tripling the size of our informatics computing group.”

“How big is it now?”

“Estimated 20% effort from two members of our technical team.”

“So I would be...” Bennie frowned. “Eighty percent of a person?”

“You’d be paid as an entire employee, though,” the Director assured her.

\--

“You want to hire me to be your entire biological threats unit?” Reis asked. That sounded... insane.

“We have other research scientists already involved at SHIELD, but they are assigned to field duties as well as threat abatement. We need someone interested in staying at base, working collaboratively with the CDC, NIH, and whoever else might be important players in emergent bioterrorism. We are... aware... that your thesis research was not widely accepted, and are willing to look past a less than winning publication record to find the right person for this position.”

 _At least they’re not calling me a crackpot,_ Reis mused. His work on terrigen-like compounds in novel mechanisms of cell fate decisions was, to put it mildly, controversial. Ignoring the people that outright thought his work was faked, the post-Battle of New York scientific landscape had become considerably more conservative regarding bioactive compounds that could, for instance, turn someone into a Hulk. Captain America aside, the majority of work similar to that done by Reis had ended in at best misery. “I’m surprised you’d want someone like me directing the focus of your organization.”

Coulson pursed his lips. “As frankly terrifying as progress can sometimes be, knowledge is power, and I intend for our organization to wield that power to the best effect. Though your research has skirted a controversial subject, you have done so with the highest possible ethical restraint. For too long places like SHIELD have focused on results, without an appreciation of how those results were obtained, or by whom. We’re committed to trying something new.”

\--

“Okay,” Miriam said. Coulson nodded in encouragement. “But I would be working _with_ spies.”

He licked his lips, furrowed his brows together. “Dr. Wen, the nature of our organization is covert, but its mission — the core values that drive SHIELD — is to protect the public.”

“Good-guy spies,” Miriam summarized.

The Director sighed but there was the barest hint of a smile underneath his exasperation. “Yes.”

\--

“And you need me to science-spy for you?” Reis asked.

“We need someone with your technical expertise, with a certain... plasticity of mind... to perform this job. SHIELD is intent upon getting smart people, but more importantly, the right people, to join our team.” Coulson settled back in his chair and his face relaxed a bit. “Before we go any further though, I wanted to give you the chance to ask some questions.”

\--

Bennie blinked hard and tried to put her thoughts together. Extensive technical questioning, she was prepared for. Difficult personalities, she was prepared for. Casual sexism, she was prepared for. This whole... setup, was not something close to what she was prepared for.

 _Why—_ “How did you choose me?”

\--

The Director nodded as though he approved of that question. “SHIELD has relied on a variety of recruiting tactics over the decades, traditionally relying on rigorous, codified training regimes which, we thought, encouraged loyalty and team dynamics.” Miriam didn’t say anything, but her eyes widened in an expression that clearly said, _and we see how well that turned out_. The Director quirked his eyebrows. “Yes, well,” he admitted. “I’ve generally operated on a more eccentric recruitment methodology.” Miriam remained silent and let the quiet stretch between them. The answer he had given was less than worthless and though she was unprepared to call him out on it, silence could draw a person to speak without impoliteness. “We screened applicants for everyone who could be verified as free of HYDRA ties or sympathies. From that pool we screened personality profiles for compatibility, and matched skills with potential projects.”

Miriam frowned. “How many people are you interviewing?”

“Three.”

“Out of all of the applicants, only three weren’t Nazi sympathizers?”

“Out of all of the applicants, only three of you were a right fit.”

\--

“What does that _mean_?” Reis asked.

Coulson glanced down into his cup of coffee, and something in his expression changed so he looked sharper. It was an expression Reis remembered from his advisor when the elder scientist had scented scientific blood in the water at conferences.

“Some scientists are looking for something with a different pace than that which a traditional research track offers. Based on your personality profile, I believe this is something you are craving, and something which we can provide. Some researchers prefer an ordered, predictable life. That is not what our organization will provide.”

Reis tried to keep the smirk off his face, but it was a losing battle. That kind of sounded awesome. “That sounds kind of awesome,” Reis admitted.

Coulson nodded. “We suspected you might think so. Would you like to meet some of the people you’d be working with?” he asked.

\--

“Our current informatics team is... Well, Fitz is suffering from a bit of a speech impediment at the moment — it would be helpful if you could just ignore any... Well, anything.”

Bennie nodded. The Director led her through the low-ceilinged corridors of the _secret underground spy base_ which bore a striking resemblance to the morgue tunnels below the medical school of her undergrad. The Director indicated an unmarked door, and pushed it open for her.

Inside was a heavily muscled man in an A-shirt and a stained plaid buttondown. He was easily six foot tall, bald, and some variety of bi-racial. He stood suddenly as they entered, his chair scraping back with a loud noise. He had a quietly amused expression when he greeted her. “Dr. Kahler.”

“Bennie,” Bennie replied and held out her hand. His handshake was warm, and strong, and christ on a cracker he was a specimen of a man.

“Where’s Fitz?” the Director asked.

“He’s getting some tea, I think. I’m Mack. I’m just here as...” He raised his hands and trailed off. “I’m just here,” he repeated.

“Mr. Mackenzie is support for our current informatics team. Skye is not available to speak to you, regretfully, but Fitz _should_ —”

“Sorry, sorry.” A scrawny guy, probably her same age, pushed into the little conference room, a file folder tucked under one arm, a mug of tea clutched in both hands. He was white with curly wriggles of brown hair and noticeable scottish brogue. His phone buzzed audibly in his pants pocket. “I’m here, I’m here,” he muttered to himself and pawed at his pocket until the buzzing stopped. “Sorry,” he repeated.

“Leo Fitz, Bennie Kahler,” the Director introduced them, and she was really going to have to learn his name because it was one thing to work for a faceless spook-infested government organization but it was another to work for a literal nameless g-man.

“It’s a—” Fitz stopped and seemed to struggle for a moment.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Bennie said.

“Yes, that.” Fitz sat abruptly. Mack chafed Fitz’s arm in a comforting gesture.

“I’ll leave you three to talk. Feel free to ask anything,” the Director said to Bennie. “And guys, be honest.” He started to step out of the room and paused. “Just not too classified,” he amended.

They were all silent for a beat after the Director left. “So, can you guys tell me what the Director’s name is again?” Bennie asked.

\--

“That’s classified.”

“Oh, sorry,” Miriam said with a frown.

May maintained her impassive expression for a moment, and then broke into a mischievous smirk. “I’m kidding.”

“Oh thank you,” Miriam let out a breath.

“It _is_ classified though. It’s Coulson.”

Miriam could tell May was laughing at her in her head.

“So from what I understand from Director Coulson, basically you need a mole in all the security meetings to give you the inside scoop.”

May’s eyebrows went up and to the side in a way that meant ‘yes and no’, if May’s expression were similar to Miriam’s mother’s. “That would be a portion of your assignment, yes,” May agreed.

“And the other portion of my assignment?”

“That would be to subtly influence the direction of those meetings, the topics in discussion, the people available to make decisions at crucial times.”

“Coulson said I wouldn’t be being a spy,” Miriam countered.

May shrugged noncommittally. “That depends.”

“On what?”

May shrugged again. They sat in silence for another moment. “Okay, if I _was_ going to do this, how do I know—”

\--

“—that you guys are actually the good guys?” Reis asked.

Dr. Simmons’ eyebrows drew together, and she made a face reminiscent of I Love Lucy episodes Reis remembered from childhood. “We are?” she suggested. She didn’t sound particularly sure of herself.

“That doesn’t sound terribly convincing,” Reis said.

Dr. Simmons tapped her nail against her lip. “Well... okay. I mean, I know we’re the good guys, but I _absolutely_ understand how you couldn’t take that sort of thing on faith. Once you get a look at the sort of projects we need from you I’m sure it’ll be quite easy to tell we’re not Hydra. We need you on information gathering, but it should be very clear that—”

\--

“—we are interested in _preventing_ the sort of wide-scale mayhem that terrorist organizations specialize in,” May said. “If at any time during your fellowship you feel uncomfortable with what you have been asked to do, you would be encouraged to come to myself or the Director. Though operational security may not always allow us to be completely forthcoming, you will be permitted to refuse assignments on moral grounds without repercussions.”

“That’s a pretty long leash you’d be giving me,” Miriam said.

“We prefer to trust, but verify, with our people. Our background checks suggest that you are trustworthy and you will be considered so until we have reason to believe otherwise.

“That’s remarkably levelheaded for secret paramilitary spies.”

May smirked. “We’re progressive like that.”

\--

“What do you see as the challenges for this position?” Bennie asked.

“Oh goodness.” Fitz flopped back in his seat and seemed to give the question some hard thought. “Goodness,” he repeated more to himself. “Well, I should say—” He seemed to struggle with a word for a moment, glanced at Mack, and obviously changed verbal trajectory, “determining where to start.”

Bennie managed to contain her flare of alarm so it didn’t show on her face. “Could you elaborate?”

“Sure, yes, sure.” He tapped his hand against the table in a rapid motion. “Right now we mostly have, ah—” He flailed, looking for a word. “We throw together programs when we need them. Skye— she couldn’t be here but she’s, em, quite good at that sort of thing.”

“Coulson scalped her off Rising Tide,” Mack added with a smirk.

“The metahuman wikileaks?” Bennie asked.

Fitz grinned, bright and distracted. “Oh that’s a good one. I haven’t heard it put like that before. Yes, them. She’d be here but she’s...”

“Out on assignment,” Mack interrupted with a look at Fitz.

“We’d like some purpose-built—” Fitz stopped with a fierce frown.

“Software?” Bennie suggested.

“Yes, that too. For—” He halted again, glanced at Mack, stared meaningfully at Bennie, and whacked his temple with a knuckle a few times. He blurted out, “Background surveillance,” and then added, “Monitoring.”

Mack nodded along. “Something on the downlow that—”

\--

“—won’t be noticed by those concerned. Staffers come and go, and interns and fellows are a dime a dozen, no offense.” Dr. Morse gave Reis a ‘what can you do’ look. Dr. Simmons had been joined by the tall blonde halfway through their talk.

Reis waved off the potential insult. “It really does seem like there’s swarms of us,” he agreed.

“This kind of work — staying quiet and keeping your ears open — can seem a bit low profile.” She tilted her head so she could look up into his face. A slow grin spread on her face. “It can be really fun though: every day there’s a new field to learn.” She exchanged a look with Simmons.

“That sounds... great,” Reis admitted. “I wouldn’t have to do guns or anything, right?”

\--

“You would be trained in a basic level of firearms proficiency, along with a few other skills that time has taught us are good for all SHIELD employees to be familiar with.” May flexed her palm wide, and gripped it into a loose fist in a way which drew Miriam’s eyes. “Such training would purely be for your own safety and protection: you are not a soldier and we are not interested in turning you into one.”

Miriam tried not to look too disappointed. “If, however, you express interest and aptitude for any of those skill sets, personalized training programs can be developed. SHIELD believes in professional development, provided that development is in line with our goals.”

Miriam bit her lip to keep from smirking.

“Any other questions?” May asked.

Miriam shook her head. “I’m sure I’ll think of some later, but not at the moment.”

“That’s fine. Let’s drop you back with the Director. He’ll—”

\--

“—want to get the last word in.” Fitz fidgeted as though saying the joke made him uncomfortable.

Bennie and Fitz stood and headed for the door. Mack rolled his eyes at the other man and picked up his forgotten tea mug, and exited the room in advance of Bennie. They walked down the same halls to the original interview room. Fitz performed a jerky little nod-bow of farewell and left Bennie standing in the hallway. Mack leaned against the wall. He had a slow, private grin. “You’re going to have fun working with Fitz. He’s just,” Mack shook his head. “ _So_ smart. I know I’ve had fun working with him.”

“How did you start working here?” Bennie asked. She leaned against the doorway to the interview room, mirroring Mack, reluctant to go in and sit alone.

“I was Navy, then got recruited to SHIELD as a pit-chief. Worked my way up from there doing mechanical and operations.”

“I’m sorry — I’m not sure exactly what that means.”

“Keeping anything with an engine running, from the compressors on the freezers to the engines on an aircraft carrier to quinjet engines.”

“Woah, that sounds crazy.”

Mack shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “An engine is an engine, and they’ve always spoken to me.”

“Still, that sounds badass.”

“Mr. Mackenzie is indeed badass,” Coulson agreed.

\--

Bennie made it back to the hotel, hung the ‘Do not disturb’ plaque on her doorknob, and slept for four hours. She woke up in time to stumble down to the lobby for happy hour, still feeling overwhelmed, but at least better rested for her nap.

“How were your interviews today?” Balia asked. They had met at a networking lunch when Bennie complimented her headscarf pattern. Bennie pointedly drank down a glass of wine and set it on the side table with more force than necessary. “That bad?” Balia asked. Though she wasn’t drinking, she was working her way through a sizeable mound of free olives with a systematic focus.

“No,” Bennie said, and even to her own ears she sounded surprised. “I think I found the place.”

Balia’s eyes widened and she exchanged a look with her partner in happy hour pilferage -- a bespeckled southern boy. “ _Really_. It’s not with Titts at the USDA, right? Because if it was I’d have to fight you and I warn you: I am scrappy.”

“No, it’s not. But it seems pretty cool.”

“What is it?” Balia’s conspirator asked.

Bennie got a deer in the headlights look while she flashed back to the end of her interview with Director Coulson, about how to answer that precise question. Balia patted her on the hand as though to comfort her.

“Predictive modeling stuff for the DHS,” she replied when her brain started to function once more.

“So like, building the Machine from that Person of Interest show?” the southern boy asked. His accent was kind of adorable.

“Kind of? Except without the being hunted by the government part, and less overall... evil,” Bennie said.

Balia rolled her eyes. “Goodness knows there is enough of that floating around this city lately.”

“Lately?” Bennie asked with a smirk. “More like since the beginning of time.”

\--

“So, did you get an offer today?”

“ _Mom_ ,” Miriam hissed into her cell.

“What? Did you not like any of your interviews today, either? You know you can’t be so picky — they may say the economy is recovered but everyone knows the middle class is gutted. You have to take what you get and don’t pitch a fit.”

“ _ **Mom**_ ,” Miriam repeated louder, but more mortified. She’d double-timed it out past Bethesda for the other interview she’d scheduled for herself (an unmitigated disaster), and was getting strange looks from the others awaiting the (surprise, surprise) delayed Red Line train south.

“What?” Her mother repeated.

“I told you they’re not allowed to offer us positions directly.” There was a long stretch of silence on the other end of the line, and Miriam could practically feel her mother’s unimpressed look. “But I had an interview I was actually excited about.”

“Was it with that Audacious Goals Initiative you talked about the other day?”

“No.”

“No? That sounded so hot though! Why didn’t you like the Audacious Goals?”

“Mom!”

Her mother sighed meaningfully. “Fine. Which one was it?”

“The one that didn’t have anything listed. It turned out to be with DHS.”

“ _Homeland Security_? Those ignorant children pawing me at the airport?”

“That’s TSA, mom. But yeah.” Miriam could hear her mother’s look of judgement across the cell connection. “This is the one I wanted. I didn’t know it, but...” She trailed off.

“But what?”

“I liked the woman who would be my supervisor, and her supervisor seemed good too, and their projects seem good, and...” she trailed off again, heaved a big sigh. “It seems like it’s the right fit.”

“Fit,” he mother repeated with a grumble. “Do they want you? It’s no good signing up for some place everyone else wants too unless you’re the best for the job.”

“I _am_ the best for the job. And they want me too. They said they were very selective with who they interviewed.”

“Hm,” her mother breathed out.

“What?” Miriam demanded.

“Well if they wanted you so much why didn’t they just offer?”

“ _ **Mom!**_ ”

\--

It was almost dark by the time Reis made it back to the hotel. He stripped off his jacket and hung it in his closet, and called his airline to reschedule his flight for Friday morning. No point in staying longer when he had decided which spot he wanted. He was checked out and heading towards the airport by eight a.m., and home by two. Sriracha greeted him at the door with a meow, and rolled to her back.

“Sichi-soo,” Reis crooned and dropped his luggage to ruffle Sriracha’s belly fur. She barrel rolled agreeably and made a satisfied whirring sound. “We’re moving to DC,” he told the cat.


End file.
